lovely

I read in a traveling blog about a tour with a local guide in Bucharest called Beautiful Decay and ordered one at once. Unfortunately, the tour was not available anymore, but I did manage to rebook it to Alternative Bucharestand got the world’s nicest guide, Mircea, to show me around the lesser known areas of Bucharest with some inside information of historic, architectural and urban character. Street art, murals, hidden gems, dilapidated houses, different ways of building and creative approaches towards social equity for Roma people were a few of the subjects we discussed while walking our boots off around the city center.

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Most times I come to Bucharest, I make sure I fit a lunch or coffee with Irina, a high school friend, in my “busy” schedule. 😉 It’s so refreshing to meet with someone so different and easy going in the “run, run, run” mentality of Romania, I can’t even begin to tell you. Things seem to be changing a bit though and the younger generation appear more hedonistic than my friends, more set on leisure time and freelancing, just like me.

So we met at Origo, my favourite place, both for the coffee, the people and the shade, where I’d just managed to empty half a cortado in my lap, on the same silk dress a pigeon had “blessed” a day before. Haha! I wasn’t even furious, I felt like a kid with an ice-cream, unable to eat it without smudging all over herself.

I’d asked the guy next to me on the bench if he liked Bucharest, since he spoke English and carried a huge camera, just like me. And he told me yes, it was his second time and he came all the way from Texas. When I told Irina she was like “I can get somebody straying once, but coming back to Bucharest?” Haha! I told her I totally got it, especially if you’re not into sights (like I’m not), and more into people and taking a city’s pulse with a camera on your neck.

We had a lovely elderflower lemonade to go with our pasta and salad lunch and raised the bar with a Prosecco by the end, since it was Friday and we only see each other once a year. 😉

Irina has a 3 year-old boy and we chatted about sleeping and reading routines, I mentioned my Diana one too many times and I might have slipped in Sam, too, even though he’s “just a dog”, since he’s my only kid. 😉

We spoke of other colleagues from high school, how some of them never seem to have time to meet, how others have secluded themselves and others again have just disappeared from the map.

I’m going to visit her at home today, so stay tuned for pictures of what I hear is a lovely garden and “maybe”, if I’m allowed, of a toddler. 😉

xxx, Alina

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I’m not done with Bergen and Bergen is not done with me. In fact, I’ll be there for a whole week at the end of June with my good friend Adriana and I can’t wait! 😉 Another human trafficking case, but after hours, this baby is going to do some world class eating and shopping. 😉 haha!

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A new chapter in my life begins in a month or so, when I’m moving in with my boyfriend (formally), after selling my apartment. Our plans are to drink rosé on the terrace the whole summer and find a new place together in the fall. I’ve loved living here so much! Take a look! ❤Continue reading →

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I came home yesterday evening and I’m still drawing my breath. Interpreting is very demanding as it is, but when your colleague is entirely useless and you end up working hours on end because she can’t fix the job she gets paid for, it leaves you dead tired. I really liked her, though, so nothing personal. But as in every other line of work, you need to be qualified, interested and invested to do a good job. Needless to say the system is flawed when you order an “interpreter” for the sole reason that she lives nearby and not her qualifications. So I see myself forced to write a complaint these days. And it’s arghhh, ’cause I don’t like being perceived as a jerk, but then again it’s my job we’re talking about and I take it very seriously.Continue reading →

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After a long winter, I finally get to see a bit of sun! Strolling through Berlin again and feeling sun rays on my cheeks feels surreal, even though that means tears down my face ’cause I didn’t think of taking my shades with me. Continue reading →

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Today I took my Sammy to the woods by Nøklevann. First we had our morning coffee at Gordanas’s, where Sam chased a toy mouse and a tennis ball when he was not tickling the girls and stealing kisses from them.